It's Not Inspiring, It's Insane

Eric Simon of Amazin' Avenue pretty much echoes my thoughts here. The Mets are going to decide their remaining bullpen and bench spots by the results of a couple spring training games. That's insane.

Over the past month, the Mets have not acted like a big league organization with millions of dollars at stake. Instead of making shrewd, low-cost pickups of guys like Justin Huber or Reed Johnson, the Mets are pretending like a few meaningless games are going to prove something about the players they do have:

"It's part of my job," Randolph said. "Sometimes, it's a good thing when you have some depth and some surplus, and hopefully, you keep some of these guys. I like the competition. It's always good."

No, you have mediocrity. Fernando Tatis is not better than you think, Brady Clark is not going to prove anything in two days. You should have already analyzed your players thoroughly. Spring training is mostly not for seeing what skills players have. You should know that already. It is for getting the players in shape for the regular season. If you are judging right now, with Opening Day three days away, you are not doing your job well.

"The fact that it's going down to the wire is good."

No, it's bad.

How do I react to the news that the Mets waived young, cheap, useful Ruben Gotay who, with tears in his eyes cried about this, the cruelest cut of all? How, that the Braves claimed him? How, that the Mets seem to favor nice, but brittle and old fellows like Valentin, Easley and Tatis?

Gotay sat in front of his locker, tears in his eyes and told the media, "I thought I did a good job last year. I didn't think I deserved this."

You happy now, Mets? You made the young man cry. It's bad enough that you decided to base his entire defensive reputation on one botched double play in order to justify your acquisition of distant, unrequited love Luis Castillo, but now you must cast him out in shame?

That's all for now. Let's Go Mets!

Baseball 2008

Now that the 2008 baseball season is under way, I'm going to go ahead and stop using the third person. Good old "I" and "me" are here to stay.

That was a great discussion in the comments about how much pitcher HR rate is random. I lean more towards Manhasset Paulie's thinking, that HR rate is largely a function of batter contact, as with BABIP.

While BABIP also is affected by defense, it is still is mostly about how well the batter makes contact with the ball.

So given equal fly-ball rates, I am inclined to think that any variation in home-run rate is mostly luck. If I'm not mistaken, regression analysis has shown HR rate to fluctuate more than walk, strikeout or ground ball rates, but not as much as BABIP.

It is possible that any repeatable difference in home run rates between pitchers with equal fly ball rates is due to a certain knowledge of situational tendencies. For instance, Guillermo Mota always throws the wrong pitch at the wrong time.

Of course, people used this same 'situational pitching' argument to refute the concept of BABIP and its essential randomness when Voros McCracken first discovered it. They would argue that Tom Glavine, for example, always knew what pitch to throw in what spot, resulting in weak contact by the hitter.

It is possible, however, that in the case of fly balls only, and not in line drives or ground balls, that certain pitchers throw pitches which are more likely to be pulled, resulting in more home runs because fences are closer down the lines. This would be the cause of differentiation in HR rates.

Anyway.

Think the Mets miss Lastings Milledge now?

Tuesday Notes

You know, Tuesday notes? Like we do every Tuesday?

Lederer plots some relievers, following yesterday's starters. As to the question, how come he uses K/BF and not K/BB (since with strikeout rate and ground ball rate, walk rate is one of the most important properties of a pitcher), we think it's because K/BF is a purer representation of a pitcher's strikeout ability aside from his control. A third axis for walks? Show us how that works, because we don't understand.

What he could do is make the dots red if the pitcher's BB/BF is below average (good) and blue if it's not.

Joe Smith is in the Northeast Quadrant, another reason why he should make the team, as we've suggested. Has he been optioned yet? We haven't been paying attention to that stuff. Pedro Feliciano is obviously in the Northeast Quadrant, because he's awesome. So is Heath Bell, just like last year. By the way, we think this Quadrant exercise effectively demonstrates how poor the Mets are at evaluating pitchers. Let's continue.

Billy Wagner has always been a Northeast kind of guy, but not last year, when his ground ball rate plummeted to below-average territory. Lederer writes, "Be forewarned: age may finally be catching up to the hard-throwing lefty."

In the Northwest, where ground-outs come easy but strikeouts don't, we find a number of recent Met relievers (Oliver, Bradford, Sele, Mota, Hernandez), but no current ones, unless you count Ruddy Lugo. And, Scott Schoeneweis is there, but we refuse to believe he is going to make this team. Throwing ground balls is good; if he stops doing that even a little bit, he's done. Yet somehow Willie Randolph considers him more valuable than Pedro Feliciano. Baffling.

In the Southwest (aka mediocre) Quadrant, the Mets have Matt Wise and Jorge Sosa. The quadrant also features a number of mediocre middle relievers signed to substantial contracts this off-season.
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Paul Lo Duca? You be quiet. You're one of those guys who has always had this great reputation as a gamer and all this nonsense that has inflated your value. You're lucky to have a one-year contract with the Nationals. You don't get to dictate your value. The market determines it. You're not entitled to anything. We will celebrate when you are forced to retire because no one wants to sign you, and another egomaniac jock will fade into obscurity. Have fun hitting .250/.290/.330 for half the year before Jesus Flores takes over.
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Omar Minaya tries to talk Jose Valentin* out of retirement:

Jose: I'm done, O. What am I even doing here? I was done last year... I mean, thanks for that contract, but
Omar: Anytime, Jose.
Jose: But, my knees have zero cartilage left, and it hurts to walk, let alone run and dive after ground balls. I really think I'm done for good, O.
Omar: Don't be so hasty. We can fix that.
Jose: But really, it's my neck that hurts now. It hurts like hell.
Omar: Where? Here?
Jose: Ow!
Omar: Right here?
Jose: Ow! Fuck! Yes!
Omar: Yea, a pinched nerve.
Jose: Ow! Yea, so I'll have to go to New York for an injection, and then I'll be out who knows how long...
Omar: Nah, we'll just give you some horse pills.
Jose: You can do that?
Omar: You're a valuable part of the team, Jose.
Jose: I mean, thanks, but I'm not really. We have plenty of players who can play the positions I play, and they're better than me at it, plus I can't really hit anymore, and...
Omar: So, we'll get you some pills, then we'll see about getting you on the roster.
Jose: But...
Omar: Don't worry, we'll talk about a contract extension later.

*You might be delighted to know that it is "March Mustache Madness" here in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Something the kids do.
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Bob Costas may want to clarify and amplify his distaste for bloggery, but obviously still doesn't really understand blogs or know how good they can be, since he's talking with Deadspin. Deadspin is like the ESPN of blogs, which is funny, because they're always making fun of ESPN. But really interesting and informative blogs, which do original work and have vibrant comment communities (not professionally sarcastic one-liners), just ignore ESPN completely and never talk about it.

I think old sports people see a few comments on their newspaper's website, maybe some ESPN comments, and then like, Deadspin, and they write off the Internet based on that. Whatever.

There's not really much to say about Bob Costas. He has shown his ignorance of blogs* and has shown no interest in becoming informed on the subject. As far as we are concerned, he is just another ignorant ass spouting nonsense on the Internet. Why we should spend any more time analyzing his words is beyond me.

*He thinks people commenting on newspaper websites are "bloggers." He thinks Baseball Prospectus and The Onion are blogs. They're not.
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John Walsh asks and answers five questions about the Mets.

First, "What is the meaning of Johan Santana?" He's better than Tom Glavine by almost four wins. Next.

Second, "What can we expect from Billy Wagner?" Walsh calls this a BP fastball, but we disagree. Not only did we predict a possible Wagner decline this year, but so did Rich Lederer. Walsh points out how great Wagner has been in his career, which is nice, but we need him to be great this year.

Third, "Will the real Jose Reyes please stand up?" Walsh talks about how often Jose popped up at the end of last year, and how his hitting problems were exacerbated by "motivational problems." Maybe because he plays for the Mets, who hate and distrust young players. Walsh writes, "In any case, it looks like Reyes is implementing some changes for 2008, both in his dugout and on-field mannerisms and, perhaps more worrisomely, in his hitting approach." We find both aspects of this Reyes-reform worrisome. Evidently the Mets want to turn Reyes into Luis Castillo.

Fourth, "Is this the trainer's room or a M*A*S*H unit?" Yes, players are injured. Nothing too serious, though. Yet.

Fifth, "Is lack of depth going to be a problem?" Considering that the Mets are actually considering using Angel Pagan as their opening day left fielder, yes. Yes, it's a problem, and the sooner the Mets can trade The Show and/or Jorge Sosa and/or Matt Wise for a solid right-handed hitting outfielder/first baseman, the better. Walsh gets into this.
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A piece we wrote for Mets Geek stirred up some discussion at ShysterBall, Baseball Think Factory and The Book blog. Clearly it was a seminal work.

The Mets' Southeast Pitchers

One of our favorite visual/statistical devices at Blastings! is Rich Lederer's pitching quadrants, aka "Categorizing Pitchers by Strikeout and Groundball Rates." Today he plotted some starters' 2007 performances.

Four Met starters make the Southeast Quadrant, the home of those with above average strikeout rates and below average ground ball rates: Johan Santana, Oliver Perez, John Maine and Orlando Hernandez. Throw in Pedro Martinez, who with a 10.2 career K/9 and a GB-rate in the low 30 percents has emphatically been a Southeast Quadrant pitcher throughout his career, and that's the entire starting rotation.

Mike Pelfrey, whose sinking fastball gets him ground balls at a well above average pace, would be in either the Northwest (high GB-rate, below average K-rate) or Northeast (high GB, high K) Quadrant, depending on the development of his other pitches, presumably.

What does this mean? It definitely means that the Mets won't be employing that solid infield defense as often as they could. Not that fly balls at Shea Stadium are a bad thing, of course, but the Mets' outfield defense isn't as spectacular. Beltran is one of the best defensive center fielders in the league, but Ryan Church is about average and Moises Alou is well below average. Lastings Milledge is a very good defender, but he's gone. Endy Chavez is brilliant, but can't really hit enough to play outfield regularly. Still, the Met starters' flyball tendencies give him a little more value.

We suspect that the Mets bullpen is the opposite.

Outfielderz...

+ Well?

Shannon Stewart? Reed Johnson? We don't know, either.

+ Hey, Ricardo Rincon is looking pretty good. Maybe Scott Blowenweis should give up his highly-coveted reserved parking spot so more important players like Fernando Martinez and Ryan Church don't have to hike in from the swamps.

Two words, Mets fans: sunk cost. That's what the LOOGY's silly contract is. The emergence of Rincon is an example of why one should not hand out such contracts to mediocre, replaceable players like The Blow.

+ MetsBlog says things like "Carlos Beltran was hitless in three at bats," when the guy drew a walk. "At-bats" are stupid, and so is MetsBlog. Yea, fuck it. We'll rip on 'em until the day they start using real fucking English paragraphs without senseless ellipses.


+ The collective dumbassery that is the failure of any MLB team to sign Barry Bonds, who is probably the best hitter ever and only one of many players to use steroids in his era, will be remembered by future fans as a defining moment for baseball, but not in a good way.

Usually, I Come Out on Top

"Unbelievable offensive talent."

Words used to describe Lastings Milledge by former and current teammate, Paul Lo Duca. It's hard to shake the feeling that if TOAST! were still a Met, he'd be echoing the sentiments of Country Time and When There's Trouble, Call DW. But still.

I've always been humble. I don't ever say, 'I'm the best guy on the team.' I just go out there and play to the best of my ability," Milledge said. "And usually, I come out on top.

We like that. He says one thing, utters a baseball cliché, and then turns it on its head. That's genius.

But what's this?

"Good Bye and Good Riddance."

Wally, is that you? Marty? Tell us, Mike Silva.

Today I am going to amend my statement so “10,000 maniacs” can put this topic to bed: Milledge will never live up to his potential here, in Washington, or anywhere else he lands throughout his career.

Does anyone else smell that? It smells like a prop bet. Nice alt-rock reference, by the way.

I originally wrote back on February 25th, 2007, for a now defunct website, that the Mets should sell Lastings Milledge because he was “like a tech stock in the late nineties just before the bubble burst”.

Because you're a dummy. You wrote it because you don't understand how to evaluate prospects. It's all right; most guys have this problem. Girls too. But here's where you went wrong: When you wrote that, Lastings had already hit 277/.388/.440 as a 21-year old at AAA. He was not and is not a nebulous "tools" player. He can hit, has done so at every level of professional baseball and will continue do so at the major league level. He is not Alex Escobar. He is not Carlos Gomez. His "misguided ego and attitude" have clearly not hindered his performance as a baseball player. But you want to say something?

Fortunately for the Mets, they did heed the advice and sold Milledge minutes before the” bubble bursted” and landed two pieces that should help in 2008.

Oh we get it now. This is a joke! Because surely you cannot be defending the deal that sent Milledge to Washington for Ryan "go to" Church and Brian Schneider, can you? That kind of silliness is for the Marty Nobles of the world.

Injuries to key players like Xavier Nady, Shawn Green, and Moises Alou allowed him the opportunity to play more than a rookie should on a team with championship aspirations.

Ohhhhhhhhhhh.... sorry. We're making fun of a 12-year old kid here. Boy are we embarrassed. Because no one but a dumb little kid would think of Xavier Nady and Shawn Green as anything but pieces of flotsam cobbled together to stand in the outfield and hit pitchers from the opposite side. No one but infants and Marty Noble would characterize them as "key players." And no one else but Marty Noble, diaper-donning toddlers and mainstream sportswriters would ever assert that rookies shouldn't play on winning teams. We guess we won't be making that prop bet. It would be like taking candy from a baby.

Here's Some Things

Sorry about the lack of posts around here-- the comment threads are buzzing, which is great, but they're mostly about how we do nothing but whine and dine around here, which is bad. We aren't really following spring training contests yet.

So, are you pumped up for Kyle Lohse? Yea! Am I right? Am I right?

We've talked about Lohse before, but in lieu of linking we'll just reiterate that he is not good, he has "experience" but the same talent as many AAA players. Therefore there really is no point in signing. Nevertheless (sigh):

Mets officials remain divided on free-agent right-hander Kyle Lohse. Some view Lohse as protection against an injury to righty Orlando Hernandez. Others see him as unnecessary in the wake of the Johan Santana trade. Righty Mike Pelfrey currently is the Mets' sixth starter, and the return of righty Duaner Sanchez from a dislocated shoulder would add depth to the bullpen.

Thanks, Rosenthal. Now we all have to read a million words about this guy. Not from me.

The Mets' biggest need remains a right-handed hitter who — ideally — could play both left field and first base. Left fielder Moises Alou, 41, has appeared in fewer than 100 games each of the past two seasons, and first baseman Carlos Delgado, 35, could use a break against lefties.

We think he means that just Delagado, not Alou also, could use a break against lefties. Alou could just use a break, err... time off, generally.

It would be great if the Mets could somehow get the Nationals to trade Nick Johnson to them. It would almost be payback for the Lastings Milledge deal. In this case Washington is in Camp Irrational, because they think that Dmitri Young is a 'character guy' who will be a good influence on Lastings Milledge and Elijah Dukes. You know, because he's black and has a record of assault, alcohol abuse and substance abuse. You know, a 'character guy.' For the kids.

Of course, Johnson doesn't exactly fit the role. He would be more of a replacement for Delgado than a platoon partner. We would make Johnson the starter and immediately start looking to find Delgado a new home. Johnson, for his part, has little difficulty with left-handers. Whatever. But if Carlos Delgado has a hole in his hip, we want nothing to do with Olmedo Saenz.

Hey, what do you know? The Mets are looking to trade Scott Schoeneweis, and Jorge Sosa too? Sell low, get rid of him (Show), and sell high, make a profit (Sosa). Dealing one or both of these guys would clear some room in the bullpen, obviously.

Great quote from David Wright re: Milledge:

Personally, I like Lastings. There were times when he messed up and he knew it and he learned from it. I don't see where this is coming from. I don't know if it's just trying to play that 'bitter traded guy' role. I don't know what he's trying to accomplish by the things that he's saying.

Wright points out that all rookies go through a "tough love" period, and Lastings was just a sorry-ass pussy who couldn't handle it. Of course, DW didn't use those words, but he definitely implied them. Billy Wagner, for his part, contends that "everyone in the organization babied the heck out of him. We couldn't get on him too much because we were told to lay off of him. It could have been a whole lot worse for him and all we did was try to help him to help us." Uh... we think you all realize what happened here:


Take it easy on Lastings, all right?

Okay. Official B!T response. You're gonna need a statement. Aw geez...

Lastings Milledge is probably somewhat of a problem. He does, after all, record mediocre hip-hop music. He probably has an attitude problem, given his history. It's likely, even, that he's really annoying to be around. But so fucking what? The Mets act like it's the point of a baseball team that all the players are real comfortable with their roles and no one pisses off anyone else. Well, maybe with the Mets that's the point. Let's hear from O'Bannon again:

"When you get a guy like Cliff Floyd, a guy that he could someday take his job, and they're out there helping him, it's awful hard to sit there and say we were bad teammates," Wagner said. "This business is hard. He probably shouldn't even have been up in the big leagues.

Oh my god, he could take a guy's job. A nice guy, like Cliff Floyd! Union forever!

Milledge. What a pussy.